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Show Hatchet Poised; Knife Uplifted; They Went Home S What Promised to Be Gory Duel Between Negroes Melts Into Affability. HERE is story well worthy of tho art of Joel Chandler Harris, but which undoubtedly first broke into the afternoon papers of Ethiopia in 500 B. C, during the reign of George Washington Adams Jefferson Diogenes, that most renowned ruler. It has to do with a bold, bad negro, who, brandishing a knife, swaggered through the streets on tho west side last night, challenging fate and cursing the luck that bade everyone flee from him. He was "loaded" for a fight. Trouble was the only thing he lacked to make him happy. "Yuh see dat knife?" he challenged as passers-by fled to the opposite side of the street. "Ah's just a-hankerin' to hide dis baby in sumbuddy! " But everyone he met evidenced a great desire to hurry out of trouble's reach. That is, everyone but another negro, built along the same immense lines as Sam big, broad shouldered and well muscled. George was the second sec-ond man 's name. George happened to be carrying a nice new hatchet," with a razor edge. Sam was going west on First South. George was coming east. At Second West they met. "See dat knife?" purred Sam. "It's gettin' mighty lonsom for some nigger to bury itself in! " George started to take the paper from around his new hatchet. "Waal, dat suttinly am strange," vouchsafed the unafraid one. "Dis heah hatchet am in de same identical perdicament! " That's how it started. Witnesses fled in every direction. It looked like the preliminaries to a double murder. But it wjw just about that, time that City Detectives Glenn and Brown happened hap-pened along with the query, "What's carrving on here?" "Vothin', suh. nothin', " was the duetted reply. ''Sam and I's just a-goin' to trade cuttin' irons. Den we's a-goin' right home. Yes, suh, we's a-goin' right home!" And as far as known that's where they went. At least a careful search of the morgues failed to reveal either of their bodies. |